army of nobunaga wrote:could you get rid of the sticks? in a cow there are not sticks... there is no reason that the borders cannot touch each other showing neighboring regions without sticks. and the barriers just being gaps as they are now.

Like in cairns coral coast, they all just flow together. I guess im not a stick fan. And when/if this reaches the gameplay step you are going to have to address the deadlock thing. Every "good" drop in a 1-3 bonus region is going to lock up that bonus right away because its too easy. This will cause deadlock, maybe even in escalating sunny it will too.

This map's going to need a little work to get there, but I think you understand that. The bold colors have got to go, they're distracting from the map and incongruous with the picture of a cow on a grass field. Perhaps instead of solid colors you could go with some texture, or perhaps put pictures of the more famous cuts (prime rib, sirloin, etc.) on the territory name.

Mobility on the map is a major issue, as army of nobunaga is pointing out. It's too closed up right now, with bonuses fairly easy to hold with either a lucky drop or some lucky dice to solidify it. Open it up a little more, or perhaps go with the circulation idea and have some "teleporter" territories to add one more border for every region.

This map, despite all the discussion, is still not quite ready for the Gameplay Workshop. You need a design brief, and putting some graphical and gameplay evolution into the map will get it moving forward.

of course it's a joke map, but it's a good enough joke map to make it to the forge. I mean - imaging pulling out a board game with a handful of your friends, and it's a map of a cow. lol. I think it's great.

Wow! Talk about a unique gameplay. Plus, it would completely tie into the theme of beef cuts, where the butcher can in fact "attack" any cut he wants. This would make those little bonus regions much harder to hold (you would have to defend all the territs) and would really put emphasis on strategy, especially in the first few turns. I think this is a really great idea and I hope the rest of the community agrees. I have gone from liking this map as a novelty to thinking it could be a really great map to play.

I agree helix... that idea would make this map extremely unique and still simple but deep... the recipe for a hit map. I dont necessarily agree that the conquer maps are overplayed but maybe they just need some different approaches like this one.

If the knives can attack all cuts, you might have to change the bonus structure a little bit... or maybe even make the "sticks" into "bones and have the knives attack all bones...

I like the ideas that are being generated now... before i wasnt too excited about a deadlock map with sticks and a cow in the background, but it has some potential i think now.

Having butcher knives that bombard every other territory would ruin this map and any hope it ever achieving decent game play. There would be no way to block in card games or hide in fog games. Plus in team games I would just be stacking on a partner until they had enough to go through a butcher knife and kill another player. The idea is okay and fits with the map, but I don't think it's good for game play.

FrancisBoyle wrote:Having butcher knives that bombard every other territory would ruin this map and any hope it ever achieving decent game play. There would be no way to block in card games or hide in fog games. Plus in team games I would just be stacking on a partner until they had enough to go through a butcher knife and kill another player. The idea is okay and fits with the map, but I don't think it's good for game play.

There are some good points here, although I think they can all be overcome. I never think the idea was to have the knives be able to attack each other. So fog of war games would still be at least slightly different than sunny ones. I guess there would have to be some territory (maybe a food critic?) that can be attacked from the cuts that has a very large killer neutral that can attack the knives. And the knives wouldn't bombard the cuts, they would one way attack them.

I thought about how some people would just deploy onto their knife (or their partners knife) and not attack. Maybe have a -1 decay (with a minimum of 1) on the knives? Or something else to keep people from hoarding.

My point is that I am a firm believer that this site needs more maps with completely different game play, like WWII Poland or Das Schloss. For sure, there will be some people who won't like it, but I think a map where starting positions can attack 95% of the map has a spot in CC, and it completely fits in with the theme of Beef Cuts.

IH, I'm a bit disappointed you don't see the beauty of your original suggestion (or at least in how I interpreted it ). If there are starting positions which can attack the entire cow (which is full of neutral 1's ), then its like manual deployment on steroids: you get to decide what regions you want to focus on from the start, whether you want to battle with some other player for a "quick" bonus or take a chance on a large region, etc. A simple -1 decay on the knives should be sufficient to force people off the knives. This would be such a different style of game and would require such a different strategy and approach, it would be like having another "game type" setting.

Am I the only only one who thinks this is genius? Did people not understand what was meant in my earlier posts or does everyone just disagree with me? Are there practicality issues I have missed?

Well, there's some problems with that. Who in their right mind would waste men on a bonus of 4 territories that can be attacked by 7 other players? And if there is decay on the knives, then they lose their value. Essentially they'd be starting points and after a round the game turns into standard... whats the point of the knives?